


You were thinking about leaving

by orphan_account



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Fusion, F/F, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5767087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s something eating at the back of her mind that she can’t quite put her finger on, the delicate curve of the woman’s cheek and the soft glow of her tanned skin."<br/>An AU where Jessica and Trish choose to forget each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You were thinking about leaving

**Author's Note:**

> This is slightly based off the film eternal sunshine of the spotless mind - i havent watched it in ages which is why its only slightly based off it, but if you ever get the chance you should watch it because it is amazing.

It’s the worst argument they’ve ever had. Jessica comes home at three in the morning and Trish is still awake in an armchair, foot tapping restlessly on the hardwood floor.

She staggers in like a soldier with a bullet wound but Trish can smell the alcohol from a mile off. Her nose crinkles, not at the smell of alcohol, but at the sight of Jessica, tattered and smiling ecstatically as she moves over to Trish. “Trish.” She slurs, wrapping her arms sloppily around Trish’s neck and sitting down in her lap. Giggling, she whispers. “Hi.”

“Jess.” Trish sighs, her hands automatically moving to Jessica’s back. “You’re home.” It’s the most they’ve touched in a week.

“Of course I’m home silly.” Jessica stands up again, walking over to the cupboards. “I know we had a little fight but it’s over now.”

“That wasn’t a ‘little fight’ Jess!” Voice cracking slightly, Trish stands up, following Jessica to the kitchen. “We need to talk.”

“Shush.” Turning on the tap, Jessica runs the water over the back of her her hand for five seconds before holding a glass under it. “What were we even fighting about? Money?” Jessica’s brow crinkles. “No, work. It doesn’t matter.”

“It _matters._ ” Trish grits her teeth. Her heart is beating so fast, causing a river of blood to rush in her ears. “You haven’t talked to me in weeks. You’re working all the damn time, and then you come home and you don’t talk.”

“Of course I talk.” Jessica looks confused. “I talk all the time.”

“Right okay, you talk.” Trish sighs. “But you don’t _share_ anything. Jess you come home and you talk about something stupid, you never tell me anything about you at all, I don’t know what you’re thinking anymore!”

“Like you’d listen.” Jessica mumbles.

“What?” Trish’s face cracks.

“All you ever talk about is your _damn_ job or what _you_ want or what _you_ ate for lunch. You don’t act like you give a shit about me at all, I have problems too Trish! But all you care about is you.”

Pressing her lips together, Trish leans heavily against the counter letting the words sink in like a cannonball to the hull of a ship. “Okay.” Is all she gets out, but the words fall broken into a dead silence, and Jessica feels most of the alcohol dissipate out her system.

Taking a deep breath, Trish’s face goes unreadable and dangerous. “You know what I think, Jessica Jones?” The words twist, shaking with venom as Trish spits them out.

“What.” Jessica sticks her chin out, eyes hard.

“I think you are an attention seeking _child_. Nothing is ever enough for you is it? Newsflash, not everything is about you okay? Sure make up things in your heard about how I’m ‘ignoring you’ but don’t ever touch the real problem.” Trish steps forwards, anger pouring out of her body like water as she moves. Her shoulders are tense and her hands shake. “You are insecure about something, all of _this_ ” she gestures “is just compensation.”

Feeling her throat close up, Jessica shuts her eyes, letting out a breath of air in the hopes that some of the pain will escape with it. “Insecure?” Her voice is an earthquake, knocking down the wall she’s built around herself. “I come to you to have a discussion about problems in _our_ relationship and you call me insecure?”

“Just saying it like it is.” Trish stands straight and indifferent.

“I’m hurting! I thought I could _talk_ to you about it! We’re us, we can get through anything.”

“Should’ve thought about that before you called me selfish.” Trish clenches her jaw at the same time Jessica’s heart breaks, like a perfectly timed ballet.

“Just saying it like it is.” Jessica repeats numbly. She can feel hot tears running down her face and doesn’t understand how Trish can be standing there, fine, when Jessica doesn’t even feel like a person anymore. It hurts more than any words ever could. “You _are_ selfish. Just like your mother.”

It’s equally satisfying and regretful to watch Trish break, but she’s out of the apartment before the satisfaction can sink in so the guilt takes over, devouring Jessica’s insides until she can’t stand anymore.

Falling to the ground, Jessica lets the glass slip out of her fingers and it smashes audibly next to her, splintering her arm, but she doesn’t feel a thing.

*

“Keep still Miss Jones.” The man has the voice of a robot, detached and procedural as he holds Jessica’s head. “Hmm.” With one hand, he takes a silk handkerchief out of his pocket and blows his nose loudly, a crack of thunder in the silent office. Watching the man slip the dirtied handkerchief back into the pocket of his white lab coat, Jessica grimaces. 

“Will it hurt?” It’s the question that’s been on her mind for the last ten minutes and though it sounds weak, she’s glad that she asked it. There’s a comfort in the way her voice cracks into the air, it reminds her where she is.

Kindly, the man smiles, his eyes crinkling. “Honey of course it does.” He fiddles with one of the two tears in the left sleeve of his coat. “But I’m guessing the reason you’re here hurts more.”

Closing her eyes, Jessica takes a shaky breath as her mind flashes with images. A white note on a polished coffee table, warm fingers interlocked with hers, her legs folded against Trish’s as she laughs and the smash of a broken glass. Colours flood into her brain, spilling themselves over the memories until everything is a mix of blue and grey and Jessica can see her whole childhood spread out before her. Every moment of her life. Trish dancing in the rain, Trish smiling, Trish as a teenager and Trish as she was three days before she left, blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and features pinched as her eyes froze over.

_One last time._

“Yes.” Jessica answers. Her heart is open, bleeding onto the office floor and she thinks briefly that someone better clean up the blood before it stains. “It hurts more than anything.”

*

The cold floor of the platform kisses the feet of strangers as they pass by, hurrying towards the finish line with a newspaper tucked under one and a fragile jar of secrets under the other. Everyone is going somewhere and Jessica is no different.

Around her, watercolour walls tower upwards, stretching tremendously to the glass ceiling, embedded with polished metal beams that years have worked untameable spots of dirt and grease into. Pulling her thin jacket tighter around herself, she slides up against the wall, moving impatiently with the crowd.

She’s just turning the corner, so near the exit of the station that she can almost taste the leftover takeaway in the back of her fridge when someone slams into her side. “Shit.” Jessica regains balance, glowering as she catches her breath. “Watch where you’re going, moron.”

“I’m so sorry.” The voice sounds familiar, like an old song drifting eerily through hotel corridors.

Jessica sighs, holding out a hand for the person to stand. “It’s okay, just be careful next time.”

“I will. My name’s Trish, by the way. Trish Walker. Sorry for being an inconvenience” The woman stands pushing her blonde hair out of her face so that her features aren’t obscured anymore and Jessica recoils.

It’s something eating at the back of her mind that she can’t quite put her finger on, the delicate curve of the woman’s cheek and the soft glow of her tanned skin. Ocean waves crash in her eyes and her mouth quirks ever so slightly at the corner as Jessica stares. “Are you okay?”

“I-” Jessica shakes her head. “Have we met before?”

Trish laughs. “You think I could forget a face like yours?”

Jessica smiles uneasily.

“So,” Trish grins. “Were you planning to go anywhere?”

Shaking off the weird nostalgia, Jessica shrugs. “Just home.”

“Well,” Trish grins, gently grabbing Jessica’s arm and pulling them out of the way of the rush hour crowds at the station. “How about dinner?”

“I eat it.” Jessica smiles slightly.

Rolling her eyes, Trish scoffs. “I meant with me! I mean, I know we’ve only just met but there’s something about you.” Her eyes glaze over slightly. “It’s like I knew you in another life or something.”

Shocked, Jessica feels her heart pick up. “Dinner?” She responds dumbly.

“Yes dinner.” Trish is teasing now. “It’s a meal you have at the end of the day.”

“With you?” Jessica asks, stopping for a second to glower at someone who aggressively brushed past her.

“If you want.” Trish shrugs.

“I do, but I’m going to go home and change first so do you want my number?” Rooting in her pocket, Jessica finds her phone with the same sense of triumph that a kid catches a baseball and unlocks it, handing it over to Trish.

Typing in a number, Trish smiles. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Looking down at her phone, Jessica lets her lips turn up at the excessive amount of kisses after the number. Thanks brewing on her tongue, she looks up, but Trish is already gone.

*

The first thing Jessica notices when she gets back to her apartment is that it is too clean. Every surface is polished, every drawer is closed and the floor is bare. It feels fake, gutted, as if someone snuck in to rearrange her furniture and stock up her milk. It’s eerie.

Her phone pings and she looks down, eyes hungrily searching the screen.

**_Trish from the station:_ ** _How does seven sound? At that cute new Italian that just opened a few blocks down from the station?_

Texting back a quick “sounds great” Jessica pockets her phone again, looking up at her clean apartment with narrowed eyes.

The black coffee table sits in the middle of the room, shiny and bare except for a white piece of paper lying on top of it. Curious, Jessica walks over. The paper is old, crumpled up and ripped at the edges as if someone was making an abstract art piece about despair. Turning it over, Jessica reads the scrawled writing on it.

_Dear Miss Jones,  
This is a letter to inform you that one Trish Walker has decided to erase you completely from her memory. We understand that this may be tough for you to hear and we send our deepest condolences, unfortunately, the procedure is irreversible. If you wish for the same treatment, contact us at the number listed below._

Drawing in a breath, Jessica freezes, letting the note drift gently to the floor. A glacier moves slowly and painfully through her body as she forgets to breathe and her mind becomes a shark frenzy, panicked and twisted and confused. Shaking, she picks up her phone and dials the number.

*

_“Will you love me forever?” It’s a stupid question, Jessica supposes, but it’s a stupid night. The stars are out and blinding, thrown across the night sky with as much care as a child with glitter and Trish grins up at them, breath coming out of her mouth like steam._

_Looking down, a smile ignites across Trish’s face and she steps forwards, kissing Jessica softly on the lips. “Of course.”_

_Smiling, Jessica kisses Trish back and their lips are cold but it doesn’t matter in comparison to how Trish laughs when Jessica wraps her scarf around her to pull them closer together._

_*_

_They’re sitting on the couch and Jessica leans her feet on Trish, who traces gentle circles on her calves. “I love you, you know.” Trish says._

_“You’re my best friend.” Jessica replies, focused on some stupid game on the phone._

_“No.” Trish leans over and pushes Jessica’s phone down. “I love you.”_

_“Love, like how our maths teacher loves fries or love like how Chandler loves Monica?”_

_“The second one.” Trish smiles._

_“Okay.” Jessica grins. “I love you too.”_

_Mouth agape, Trish looks as if the entire universe has just been opened to her. “Just like that?”_

_“Just like that.” Jessica nods._

_There’s a silence for a second, before Trish smiles gently. “You know, you need to stop making so many friends references or you’ll ruin your reputation as a badass.”_

*

The phone rings eight times before a man picks up. _“Hello.”_

“Hello.” Jessica is rushed, breathless. “It’s Jessica Jones.”

There’s an extremely long pause. “ _I’m sorry I do not know of any Jessica Jones.”_

Anger surges through Jessica’s body and she grips her phone tightly. “Cut the shit I know you know who I am!”

“ _Even if that were true,”_ The man speaks carefully, as if he is walking on broken glass. “ _I would not be able to help such a person.”_

“You can goddamn try!” Jessica is almost shouting, voice hoarse as tears run down her face. “I want my memories back.”

“ _It is irreversible, I am sorry Miss Jones.”_

“I met her again, at the train station. The woman who I wanted to forget.”

“ _Trish Walker. I do recall. Quite a tangled web you got yourself into there, Jessica.”_

“She asked me out, or I asked her out.” Jessica stumbles over her words, sighing. “We’re going to go out.”

“ _I wish you luck on your date.”_ The man sounds amused.

“Stop being a douche and help me!” Jessica is being rude now and she can feel the man’s impatience with her bristle through the phone.

“ _Stop and think for a second Miss Jones, there’s no way I can give you your memories back, neither can I give Miss Walker hers, but I can tell you this. Things happen for a reason. It’s no coincidence that you bumped into Miss Walker again on the very day that I wiped all memories of her from you. That’s the thing with love, you’re supposed to give it second chances!”_

Bitterly, Jessica asks “If you believe that so strongly then why do you erase people’s memories of each other?” Her toes scuff along the floor of her, (hers and Trish’s?), apartment as she speaks.

The man sighs, long and drawn out like the last breath of an old man. “ _I don’t know, I erased that memory from myself_.”

“Why?” Jessica asks, curiously.

“ _You of all people should know that I don’t have the answer to that Miss Jones. But I can assure you, the answer to your problem is to just go on the date, give it a second chance. Tell her if you have to. Goodbye, I hope you never have to see me again.”_

“I hope so too.” Jessica breaths, and when the line goes dead all that’s left is her thumping heartbeat.

*

Trish is sitting at a table in the restaurant, tucked into the back corner with light pouring down over her golden hair. Jessica catches her eye as she walks in and the way that Trish smiles removes any doubt about anything. This is it.

The chair is heavy as Jessica pulls it back and she sits cautiously, smiling back at Trish.

“So,” Trish smirks. “I see you put a lot of effort into changing clothes for your classy date.”

Looking down at herself, Jessica realises she’s wearing the same outfit she was at the station and internally cringes. Shaking it off, she smiles. “I look great in anything so…”

“Can’t argue with you there.” Trish shrugs, her teasing eyes the colour of a summer sky. “So, what do you want to drink?”

“I’ll just have a coke.” Jessica answers. “Wait did you just say you were classy?”

“Yep.” Trish raises an eyebrow. “Any arguments?”

“Nope.” Jessica laughs. “You’re perfect.”

Hopefully, Trish leans forwards. “So does that mean there’s going to be more dates?”

“I hope so.” Jessica whispers.

*

They’re three months into their new relationship when Jessica finally tells her. “You know, I knew you before. We had something.”

She’s expecting Trish to be confused at the least – she’s spent three months trying to build up the courage to tell her and that’s harder when you haven’t touched a drink because ‘new relationship, new me’ and Jessica is expecting a landslide to blot out the sun from their newly made home.

But all Trish says is “I know”.

“What.” Jessica looks over from the couch to where Trish is cooking dinner. “You know.”

“Yep.” Trish stirs the pot on the stove. “A few days after I returned from the clinic, I looked in my wallet and there was a picture of us. I asked about as to who you were and eventually a guy called Malcolm told me it was you, and what we were to each other.”

“So you’ve known all this time.” Jessica is dumbfounded, unable to compute what is happening, as if her brain has short-circuited.

Trish continues on. “Malcolm eventually told me your work schedule so I made sure to go to the train station every morning when you went in and every evening when you came home in hopes of seeing you, but I never did-”

“Until you bumped into me.” Jessica pieces it together. “That was all staged?”

“Well, yes.” Trish replies, smiling.

“You are _evil_.” Jessica gasps, a grin running onto her face. “To keep it from me for that long.”

“I wanted to see if you’d still fall in love with me without knowing.”

“So I was your experiment?” Jessica teases, as she moves towards Trish, wrapping her arms around her waist. 

“No.” Trish turns around and pecks Jessica on the lips. “You were my fate.”

“I love you.” The words slip out of Jessica’s lips before she can stop them, but they feel comfortable out in the air so she can’t bring herself to worry.

Turning around, Trish faces Jessica. “I love you too. Never forget that.” She kisses Jessica softly and surely.

“I won’t.” Jessica whispers.

**Author's Note:**

> come join a cult @ trishicatrash.tumblr.com  
> (its not actually a cult but you can pretend)


End file.
